Casualty Care in Tomorrow's Wars

Modern War Institute

John Amble

Government, News

4.7 • 798 Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2024

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

During the United States’ post-9/11 counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, many US service members survived wounds that would have been fatal in any previous conflict. This was largely because of the care they received—beginning at the point where they were wounded and continuing through evacuation to medical facilities in theater and transport to military hospitals at Landstuhl, Germany and in the United States. But prolonged casualty care will be vastly more challenging in what the Army calls LSCO (large-scale combat operations) environments. To explore why—and what will be required to meet the challenges—John Amble is joined on this episode by Colonel Jennifer Gurney, the chief of the DoD Joint Trauma System, and Lieutenant Colonel Max Ferguson, an infantry battalion commander whose recent deployment experience offers insights on how this crucial issue affects tactical-level maneuver units. The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Our casualties have this long transport, sometimes 8,000 miles, two rotary wing transports,
0:10.0	fixed wing transport, or something that in a civilian trauma center would be an elevator ride.
0:15.0	100 casualties at the battalion level in the LISCO fight in a major battle.
0:19.0	What is that one surgical team going to be able to do for me?
0:21.3	Not a lot.
0:22.4	You know, this is a maneuver problem.
0:24.4	The prolonged casualty care plan and simple will be owned by maneuver commanders,
0:28.9	become a logistical problem in LISCO.
0:31.2	This conversation is really about what happens when the Golden Hour goes away.
0:35.8	Hey, welcome back to the Modern War Institute podcast brought to you with the generous support
0:40.0	of the West Point Class of 1974.
0:42.5	I'm John Amble, and this episode features a discussion about a really important subject, prolonged
0:47.9	casualty care.
0:49.9	During its post-9-11 counter-insurgency operations, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military
0:54.9	had its lowest case fatality rate in history.
0:58.4	Huge numbers of soldiers who suffered wounds that would have been fatal in any previous
1:02.1	conflict survived because of the care they received.
1:05.7	But that occurred because of a number of conditions that won't be present in the case of
1:08.8	a major war, and it rested on assumptions
1:11.0	that won't necessarily hold on a battlefield characterized by what the army calls LISCO, large-scale
1:16.2	combat operations.
1:17.8	To discuss the subject, I'm joined on this episode by two army officers with unique and valuable
	...

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